This example uses a static set of files and no build tools.
Warning: This is ONLY an example and NOT a recommendation to run a Netlify CMS server on your backend. It should only be used in a controlled environment (file corruption can be real) by someone who is familiar with the netlify-cms project and is familiar with running an express server locally. The horrors of a deleted file without a backup can ruin someones day.
Definitely familiarize yourself with the netlify-cms-backend-fs library before playing around with setting up this example.
Now that you are afraid 😱 to try this example, it can be easy to setup yourself. The example creates an Express server and uses the netlify-cms-backend-fs middleware. The example config and files are the same as the netlify-cms dev-test setup, only this example uses the file-system backend.
yarn or npm install
yarn server or npm run-script serverThe middleware will output where your paths for reading and writing will come from
netlify-cms-backend-fs (version: x.x.x)
Root path is <root path>\netlify-cms-server-example
Site path is <root path>\netlify-cms-server-example
Also let's you know where the endpoints are for the server
Server listening at http://localhost:3000/
API listening at http://localhost:3000/api
CMS listening at http://localhost:3000/admin
If you want to run your own server script, you could do the following on the CMS Page
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
<title>My CMS</title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Include the scripts that builds the page and powers Netlify CMS -->
<script>
/**
* Global flag to initialize the CMS manually after registering backend and widgets.
* In most cases, the CMS will render prior to the backend script load which could cause errors.
* This will make sure the backend is registered prior to the loading of the CMS.
*/
CMS_MANUAL_INIT = true;
</script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/netlify-cms@latest/dist/netlify-cms.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/netlify-cms-backend-fs@latest/dist/index.js"/>
<script>
CMS.registerBackend("file-system", FileSystemBackendClass)
initCMS(); // Manually starts the CMS on the page after the registration of the backend
</script>
</body>
</html>NOTE: If you have a CORS issue, because you are running the backend on a different port or location, see this issue and cors solution. Thanks for the heads up @Benoss 😀.